Since the 1970s, the rich have gotten vastly richer, the poor have become more numerous, and the middle class has shrunk in size and net worth. At the same time, Americans of all classes, hypnotized by propaganda about the "greatest country in the world," continue to misjudge wildly how inequitably wealth is distributed in this country. And when you ask how wealth should be allocated, Americans come up with something that looks a lot more like western Europe than the United States.
[The top row depicts actual U.S. wealth distribution. The middle row shows what we imagine wealth distribution is. And the bottom row reflects what we think wealth distribution ought properly to be. On the first line, by the way, the .3% of the nation's wealth that is in the hands of the bottom 40% of the population is too insignificant to be represented on the chart. Source: Building a Better America – One Wealth Quintile at a Time by Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely.]
"There Is a War Being Waged Against the Working Families of America"
Absent a realistic understanding of how our nation's wealth is distributed, it isn't entirely surprising that we continue to vote in to office politicians who fail to represent our interests, who in fact for decades have pursued policies that have made the situation worse. How badly most of us are represented was made apparent the other day when Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist from Vermont, rose to address the U.S. Senate:
See, also: Anti-poverty effort good for everybody by David DeWitt (The Athens News 2010-11-11).
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